


Subscribe Me Not To Darkness

by sakesushimaki



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-03
Updated: 2011-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-21 00:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakesushimaki/pseuds/sakesushimaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Before all goes black, there are voices, car horns,...</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Subscribe Me Not To Darkness

_November_

Before all goes black, there are voices, car horns, bright lights shining against the side of his face.

There’s the cell phone clutched in his hand, still, arm spread out to his side in a strange angle. As much as he tried, he couldn’t remember how to move his fingers, couldn’t reach the button, couldn’t say…

“Sir, you have to keep your eyes open! Sir!” Someone slaps his cheek and his head rolls to the side.

He sees the blood then, shimmering on the asphalt next to him. Funny, he doesn’t feel any pain. But then again, he hasn’t felt much in a while.

He feels the wind, however. Moist and cold, typical Pittsburgh weather this time of the year.

“Sir! Shit, he’s—”

Yes, the night Brian Kinney dies is a quite ordinary night.

 

+++

 

 _October_

“If you take that plane, Brian, we’re through.”

Brian can’t say that he’d fully expected that, but the twisted, painful kind of relief tells him that it’s fine. That it’s how it should be.

He listens to Justin’s breathing over the line, waiting; both of them waiting for something.

A click and the call is disconnected.

They haven’t been waiting for each other in a while.

 

+

 

 _September_

It takes Justin five months to book a ticket. Only when he lands does he realize that he’d missed a whole season, two almost. He suddenly doesn’t know whatever kept him so fucking long.

He ponders calling Brian to come pick him up, but decides against it. He’d emailed his flight information a couple of days ago, Brian knows when he lands. And Brian didn’t offer.

Justin takes a cab and goes to the loft anyway. Yes, it’s been five fucking months. Yes, Justin should’ve made the trip home earlier. Yes, they have barely talked. Yes, they kind of fucked up this distance relationship thing.

But they are still them, Justin hopes. They will be alright. They just have to be close again.

As the Pittsburgh air, fresh and unspent in comparison to New York’s, fills his nose, he wonders how he ever went so long without. Without the weirdly fresh air, cinnamon lattes from that rundown but somehow endearing coffee shop on the corner of Tremont, without Brian.

The door pulls back a bit harder than he remembers, the metal suddenly feeling wrong against his palm, and Justin instantly learns why.

Something in his throat tightens, something in his eyes stings and his bag feels twenty pounds heavier as he stands there and stares.

“Oh, was that today?” Brian says, barely slowing his pounding into the shaggy haired guy.

As Justin walks back down the stairwell, the air smells stale.

 

+

 

 _October_

He’s brilliant and he knows it. Better yet, the whole room knows it.

As Cynthia tries to keep her grin tidy, the men try to not look too impressed as they gather their things.

Mr. Henderson is an old school type of guy, however, and Brian knows it well. Knows that he’ll have to jump through some form of last hoop before the deal is closed officially. The old school guys love doing business over some variation of male bonding rituals.

“What do you say, Brian, you meet me up at my golf resort next weekend and we’ll go over that promising plan of yours again? I’ll have my assistant contact you with the details.”

Brian has an e-ticket to La Guardia and back for the next weekend sitting on his desk. It’s right on top of his gym membership bill, next to the blue pen set.

Mr. Henderson’s sweaty handshake is sobering. Brian barely has to clear his throat. “Sure thing, Mr. Henderson. See you there.”

Only when he’s at the airport a week later does he call Justin to let him know of the change of plans.

 _“If you take that plane, Brian, we’re through.”_

Brian watches the line at the check-in for flight 607 with service to New York grow shorter for a while before heading to his own check-in.

 

+

 

 _September_

“One more Cheeto and I’m gonna puke all over your precious Ikea carpet,” Justin warns Daphne who continues holding the bag out to him. “Not that anyone would notice,” he adds, once again eyeing the ugly orange pattern.

“Meh.” Daphne puts the bag on the coffee table.

“Where’s the— ah, yes.” Justin pets the bottle of lychee sparkling wine that’s resting in the crook of his arm. He’d initially refused Daphne’s girly drink, but after a certain point he forgot to care.

“You should just give him a call. Or pick up at least,” Daphne says with a mouth full of cookie dough, having moved back from _salty_ to the _sweet_ section of their little buffet.

Justin blinks at her, then at the coffee table, and wonders why they don’t have a _sour_ section. It would be so very appropriate.

His phone starts vibrating then and once again he stares at Brian’s name on the angrily flashing display until the text changes to _3 missed calls_.

“I just don’t get how we got from buying-me-a-fucking-house-wanting-to-marry-me back to treating-me-like-shit.”

Daphne takes a swig from her own bottle of lychee bubbly. “His pattern is very intricate.”

Justin scoffs.

“On the other hand,” she adds, swirling a lock of hair around her finger in deep concentration. “He wanted to give you, like, _everything_ , and you took off and didn’t come home to see him for five months.”

Justin hates how Daphne, even when plastered, has the ability to smack you in the face with logic and facts without even noticing. He looks down, wrapping the corner of a wildly dotted spread around his finger.

How did everything get so fucked up?

He reaches up and rubs a hand over his face, because he’s not going to start weeping like a fucking child, and eats five more Cheetos.

…

He wakes up a couple of hours later, with a Kit Kat wrapper stuck to his neck and with Daphne snoring a couple of feet away. He digs out his cell phone and calls Brian.

The hideous wall clock tells him that it’s 3:27 am and while he waits for the call to be answered, he swears that he’s going to kill Brian if he dares to complain.

Brian doesn’t say a word and is out front within fifteen minutes.

…

Justin knows better than to expect an apology. He also knows better than to queen out now as they drive through nightly Pittsburgh at 3:50 am.

Except that he can’t help himself. At the next red light it bubbles up. “I know I messed up too, okay? I know. It’s just that _I_ know that no matter what happens, I just… I know that you’re it for me and… I thought with my coming home finally, that we would just-- … but then I see you with that guy and…” Justin rubs his forehead. “I thought it was the same for you. I thought that’s what the whole _only time_ shit was about.”

Justin recognizes defeat when he encounters it. Why the fuck can’t he keep his mouth shut until he’s sobered up enough to actually formulate his thoughts?

Brian gives him a quick look before stepping on the gas.

Justin lets his head fall against the window and closes his eyes. He feels very tired.

“It was,” Brian says then. “It is.”

Fifteen minutes later they’re still sitting in the car, parked in front of Brian’s building.

“We’ll… we’ll try harder this time, alright? I need us to try harder. Promise me.”

Brian doesn’t say anything, but reaches over and threads his fingers through Justin’s.

They don’t leave the car for another fifteen minutes.

 

+++

 

 _November_

Brian wakes up to fingers stroking in his palm and the back of his hand. He wonders how he can even feel that, how he can filter that feeling out from the painful numbness that’s running through his entire body.

It takes him a minute to realize that the familiar touch is Justin’s. That it’s Justin’s hand in his, Justin’s red-rimmed eyes on him.

“What…?”

Justin clutches his hand tighter and holds it to the side of his face. His lips move against Brian’s palm when he says, “You were… you were fucking dead, Brian. For a couple of seconds you were dead. They… they reanimated you.”

…

The doctors seem slightly bewildered by the fact that no one’s more surprised by Brian’s speedy recovery, but then again, they don’t know him.

On the day he’s released, Justin is there, packing Brian’s things while they wait for the doctor to do the final check-up.

Brian watches him move around the room. He’s tired of feeling sick and exhausted all the time, tired of scratchy linens, tired of reminding himself that getting used to Justin being there is not an option. “You don’t have to stay here, Justin. I’m alright now. You should go ba—”

“Shut up, Brian!” Justin barks and throws Brian’s razor into the bag. He dumps it on the chair by the door before sitting down next to Brian’s casted leg.

“And I swear to freaking Vishnu, that once you’re back to being awake more than two hours at a time, we’re going to talk about why you ditched me for business on the last minute and about how we’re going to work it out. And I’m not, ever,…” Justin takes a deep breath. “Having the last thing I say to you be that we’re over.”

Brian remembers cold asphalt, death, and a desperate wish for one last call. “Can’t wait,” he says, lips still chapped and dry.

Against Justin’s they feel perfect.


End file.
